


Paradise

by fhsa_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-25
Updated: 2004-06-25
Packaged: 2019-02-05 16:07:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12797877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Camping brings a surprise.Paragraphs supplied by: tangential thinker.Story written for the Lyric Wheel: Literary.Alex still has two arms in this. Thanks to John Prine for the music that spoke for a good portion of my generation.





	Paradise

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

The sun had set and Walter was lounging by the fire. Alex had excused himself, so Walter assumed he was following the call of nature. He sipped on his beer as he waited to see if his lover would be yelling for a rescue soon. 

 

It had been Walter's idea to go camping. Alex told him he was more at home in the big city. Implied but not said was 'you better keep me safe'. Of course, Alex had brought along enough artillery to take out a third world country, so Walter was pretty sure that Alex could protect himself against anything lurking in the woods. 

 

All in all it had been a good day. The four-wheel drive had gotten them far enough off the main routes that Walter knew they probably wouldn't be disturbed. A good thing when you planned on tying your lover to a tree and making him scream in ecstasy. 

 

They had hiked during the late morning, actually gathering some berries that they had eaten as dessert after a dinner of trout caught during Alex's first fishing lesson. Had camping with a woman ever gone this well he might have convinced himself that he was straight. 

 

He had been quite pleased at Alex's response to the entire day. Not one complaint. Not even when he tripped and ended up in the river while trying to haul in his first trout. He had come up sputtering but still gripping his fishing rod. His genuine delight evident in his laugh when he saw the fish dangling from his line.

 

Walter offered to cut the fishing short to get him back to camp for dry clothes. But he had wanted to try again. Since the day was warm Walter had kissed the end of the cute nose and agreed to stay out a little longer. Alex caught a total of three fish that afternoon. Back at the campsite Walter had moved to start the fire he had laid before they went fishing. 

 

"Walter, are you going to show me how to clean these?"

 

"You're in luck, Alex. Trout take less prep than most types of fish. Here I'll do the first one and you can do the others."

 

Walter gave him a quick demonstration. By the time Walter got back from getting the rest of their dinner fixings from the SUV Alex was finished with the fish. He checked them quickly to see how Alex had done his first time. The incisions weren't as neat as the one Walter had done but then it was his first time.

 

"Did I do it right, Walter?" 

 

His voice held a hint of worry, causing Walter to give him a closer look. He smiled when he realized how important this was to Alex. 

 

"Perfect, Alex. Want a beer?"

 

"Yeah, thanks."

 

Walter wrapped the potatoes and corn and placed them on the hot rocks around the fire to cook. He washed the berries for later, they would go well with the cookies. Alex had seasoned the fish and they put them on the grill to cook slowly. Walter kept turning the corn and potatoes so they would cook evenly. 

 

Their dinner was consumed in almost total silence. Each man thinking his own thoughts as the evening cooled and the daytime creatures became silent, giving way to the noises of nighttime ones. 

 

The two men had been lovers off and on for over ten years but they had only lived together for a few months. So they were still in the honeymoon phrase. He knew that Alex worried that long-term exposure would cause Walter to grow bored with him. That added to the fact that Alex was afraid that Mulder and Scully's campaign against him would eventually wear Walter down.

 

Walter had tried to reassure Alex that he was in this for the long haul, but had finally decided that only time would convince him. He planned for this week away to give them time to unwind, with no pressure from jobs or friends.

 

He hadn't told Alex, but they were actually close to where he had gone camping every year with his father and multiple cousins and uncles. In his family it had been a rite of passage to take the male children out, teach them to hunt and survive in the woods. 

 

He was close to dozing when he heard Alex's footsteps coming back. A warm hand caressed his scalp before he felt rather than saw Alex settle next to the fire with him. Not touching as he expected so he cracked an eye open to take a look. 

 

Alex was sitting cross-legged a few feet away. He watched mesmerized as Alex opened a guitar case and removed a real beauty. He didn't know Alex played and had never seen the guitar. He wondered when and how Alex had placed it in the SUV. And how he had managed to overlook it.

 

"Alex, I didn't know you played."

 

"Just another skill the bosses thought might come in handy. But I enjoyed it so I've tried to practice whenever I could. This is the first guitar I actually bought for myself. I thought it would fit in on a camping trip."

 

"So play for me." 

 

"Actually, I've been practicing something since you told me where we were going to camp."

 

Walter waited as Alex tuned the guitar. Then closing his eyes he began to strum and Walter's jaw dropped as the words flowed. Walter's surprise came from Alex knowing such an old song, as well as the quality of the voice that washed over him. Alex's voice had always been one of the things that drew Walter to him, but he had no idea that Alex sang so well.

 

When I was a child, my family would travel

To western Kentucky, where my parents were born

And there's a backward old town that's often remembered

So many times that my memories are worn

 

Walter joined his voice to Alex's for the chorus. Alex's head rose, eyes glowing as he sang. Walter was quiet as Alex sang the next verse, joining him again on the chorus.

 

When the song ended Walter grinned.

 

"So, how did you find out that I like John Prine? Been going through my old ten inch records?"

 

"No, just another bit of info they gave me when I was being taught to be the perfect lover for you."

 

Walter lost his grin on hearing that. He didn't like being reminded that the beautiful man he loved had been 'taught' to want him. 

 

"Sorry, Walter. I shouldn't have said that."

 

"You know I want the truth from you. Even if it isn't always pleasant."

 

"Walter, I'm with you now because I want to be, you know that, don't you?"

 

Walter cringed inside at the look on Alex's face. He hated that Alex was so insecure about them. But then Walter was still insecure in the relationship, too. 

 

"I know. Do you know why I picked this place to camp?"

 

"No, that, you'll need to tell me."

 

"I shot my first deer not far from here. My father and his brothers would bring us boys out here every weekend during deer season. Our family was so poor that hunting was not a sport. It helped feed the family. Those days were so peaceful though, in spite of that. I mean, we were dirt poor, but it didn't matter because I was loved. I wanted to share that with you."

 

"We've never really talked about family."

 

"This week I hope we talk about a lot of things we haven't before."

 

"I'd like that."

 

"Want to sing me another song before I drag you into the tent and ravish your sexy body."

 

"How about you sing with me?"

 

"If you do something I know."

 

"Pretty Good?"

 

"Yeah, I think I remember that one."

 

Their voices blended together as the campfire began to die down. After the song was finished Alex put the guitar away carefully in the case as Walter put out the fire. By the light of the lantern they made their way into the tent. Alex stowed the guitar to one side. The two men undressed quickly, meeting in the middle of the oversized sleeping bag.

 

The kisses led to gentle caresses, those mutating into a need stronger than either man had ever felt with anyone else. Walter's big hands were gentle as he stroked lube between the cheeks. Alex gasped as he clung to Walter trying to make him hurry. 

 

"Need you, Walter, please." 

 

"You're gonna get me, but I won't let you rush me."

 

Walter was determined never to hurt Alex again as he had in the past. After all these years Alex was used to Walter and his size but Walter could never forget the night he had hurt Alex, had made him bleed. 

 

His fingers slipped out only to return with more lube. Then he positioned himself and pushed deep into the warm body of his lover. Bending low he kissed Alex as he waited for his body to adjust. The lovemaking was slow and sweet despite the lust Alex always generated in him. 

 

Their voices soon blended together in a different kind of song as they came, almost in the same moment. Walter lay curled around Alex almost asleep when the whisky voice spoke softly in the dark.

 

"What are you going to teach me tomorrow, Walter?"

 

"Knot tying."

 

"We aren't sailing and I don't need a merit badge. Why do I need to know about knots?"

 

"Just in case you want to untie yourself from that tree."

 

"What tree?"

 

"The one I intend to tie you to and have my wicked way with you."

 

"Wicked way? Would that be orally wicked? Or anally wicked?"

 

"Depends on if you're facing the tree or leaning against it."

 

"I get to pick?"

 

"Sure."

 

"Do you have a preference?"

 

"Leaning sounds good."

 

"I'll try to remember that."

 

"You do that."

 

Walter's lips nuzzled an ear as his arms tightened around his lover. Alex's hand reached to pull the sleeping bag closer around them. Just as Walter was dropping off to sleep he heard a soft.

 

"I love you." 

 

A man could get used to hearing that. Could get used to saying it, too.

 

"Love you back."

 

In the distance a wolf called out to his mate, but neither man noticed as they were dreaming of the future that they would share together.

 

 

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer 

 

Three hundred yards to the west I was shivering uncontrollably in my tent -- even though I was zipped into my sleeping bag, and wearing my down suit and every other stitch of clothing I had. The gale threatened to blow the tent apart. Every time the door was opened, the shelter would fill with blowing spindrift, so everything inside was covered with an inch-thick layer of snow. Oblivious to the tragedy unfolding outside in the storm, I drifter in and out of consciousness, delirious from exhaustion, dehydration, and the cumulative effects of oxygen depletion. 

 

"White Fang" by Jack London 

 

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness -- a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild. 

 

Paradise by John Prine

 

When I was a child, my family would travel

To western Kentucky, where my parents were born

And there's a backward old town that's often remembered

So many times that my memories are worn 

 

CHORUS:

And daddy won't you take me back to Mulenberg county

Down by the Green River, where Paradise lay

Well I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in askin'

Mr. Peabody's coal train has hauled it away 

 

Well sometimes we'd float right down the Green River

To an abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill

Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols

But empty pop bottles was all we would kill 

 

CHORUS 

 

Then the coal company came, with the world's largest shovel

And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land

Well they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man 

 

CHORUS 

 

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River

Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam

I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'

Just five miles away from wherever I am


End file.
